The idea that private schools are better is a myth. Debunked in these pages and elsewhere, many times by the simple analysis of each and every state’s test scores…. Private schools do not, can not, and never have, had the resources to compete on the same scale of effectiveness, as do our public school institutions.

Even in a millionaires’ school, with unlimited financial resources, the lack of depth causes such to fall short when properly compared to the public school system.. It is like when it comes down to the NCAA final, a little Butler will always lose to a big UK…..

Investing in private schools with public money is like investing in Charlie Copeland’s gambling addiction with public money. Investing in private schools with public money is like investing in Mike Ramone’s gambling addiction with private money. Investing in private schools with public money is like investing in Dave Sokola’s gambling addiction with public money…. It’s bad enough we are losing money in the Racino’s state sanctioned gambling operations… Much less add on a new layer…… Especially now?

Charter Schools do not teach well, and steal away money from that which works very well. Why would anyone want to do that?

Call your legislators and at the very least, demand they do something to stop the flow of property tax monies out of our public school system….

There are two solutions.

Ban Charter Schools, and re-phase them back into the public school system. Use eminent domain to own the property they are on.

Or fund them outside the property tax revenue stream. Fund them as are vocational schools by a line item in the general assembly’s fought over budget that says… specific Charter School…. “x” amount of $$$$…….

I’d prefer the latter for Constitutional reasons, but both would get the job done. That job, is to give our kids the best schooling money can buy….

By putting as much as is possible into our best…. the public education superstructure….. They win, when private schools always tend to lose….

It is very simple. If one Republican supports segregation, and the Republican Party does not expunge him from its party, obviously the Head of The Republican Party then automatically inherits the problem and becomes culpable…. But there are two Republicans doing this. And both are the principal movers of the entire Republican Party (if not name, then deed) of Sussex County.

The only outcry from the Republican Party has been a buried press release from the head here in New Castle County, which no one read…..

That can only mean the Republican Party secretly supports segregation….

Think about it. You are with a group of people and one starts harassing someone outside your group. They could be liberal, gay, effeminate, Hispanic, urban, whatever. It doesn’t matter. But that someone in your group goes off half-cocked and bullies them n public…

What do you do, sitting there holding your beer? Do you come to that person’s defense? “Hey, you can’t do that to them. You need to leave us right now, You don’t represent us! You sicken me. In fact, I’m going to punch my fist right through your f’n head. Then when you’re down I’m going use my new cowboy boots to grind your head into tomato paste.” (Because if you did, The bullying would probably stop immediately, since you were becoming the new threat.)

But probably not. Most likely you are going to sit there, silent, pondering all your choices, and from the outside keep a stoic face so all around you, especially that person being verbally abused, will assume you are just part of the posse, going along with the sheriff doing the abusing… If ever later questioned why you chose not to intervene, you will say “I’m not prejudiced. I actually like “those people”. I don’t have a part in this fight. Of course I don’t agree with him, but I’m not going to get into a fist fight with someone I work with…. ”

And thus, through yours and your acquaintance’s cowardice, you allow the abuse to continue. Someone else another day, will feel the ire, and then someone else the day later, etc…. The real problem is allowed to continue. And we all know; it is a real problem.

So when we all are held accountable, (as to why did you do nothing to stop it), despite whatever excuse we proffer it will become obvious to us that there was indeed another choice at that time which could have been made…. We could have done something….

That is why one press release read by nobody, is not enough. Only one action and one action alone is strong enough to send the proper message that this behavior will NOT be tolerated. That is to permanently ban Vince Phillips and Sam Wilson from any Republican Party affiliation. That is to public excommunicate them from the Republican Party of Delaware… That is to issue a restraining order banning Vince Phillips and Sam Wilson from any function even remotely connected to the Republican Party of Delaware…..

IF the Republican Party does not take such drastic action…. they are culpable just as you or I would be if a friend of ours started demeaning a stranger in our presence. WE WOULD BE GUILTY TOO…..

This is why, no… as in zero… self-respecting human being should donate, volunteer, or even vote for any Republican until the Republican Party has elicited some serious cost upon the perpetrators… Considering the moral weakness previously exhibited by their current leader, I predict that will be highly unlikely….

I further predict that segregation against the “colored people” will be continue to be openly practiced in Sussex County because it now has the unspoken “protection” of the Republican Party.

Charter Schools. This never happens in a public school. Or in a school run by Democrats. And what should really burn, is that those 330 students pulled out $1.2 million dollars from the surrounding public schools…

Call your legislator today. Tell them to stop funding charters out of public school’s monies… Give them a line item in the state budget.

In this case not only did the students in this Charter School suffer, but so did every other student who had money stolen away from their education….

(btw, the headline was Allan Loudell’s lead off line this afternoon, Good one!)

Doesn’t he have an election coming up soon? If so, how can anyone expect to make a credible run for Attorney General IN THIS STATE, AFTER BEAU BIDEN’S TERM, and be guilty of keeping a tiny little bill, which has no harm but opens all board meetings to being recorded and accessible on line?

Only Simon Barsinister could be against something so inane… Or…. Hmmmmm…. Somebody … With… Something…. To …. Hide….

Hmmm. Now… Why would the surprise future attorney general, be sooooo adamant, even to the point of losing an election over blocking legislation so inane, that all it does is open school boards of all things, open to the public as a service… Anyone can walk into a school board and hear exactly the same thing they’d hear on tape… But sometimes… a diaper needs changed. But sometimes, a family meal needs prepared. Sometimes extra work for the office must be done for deadline the next day…. Darn we say now….I guess we won’t get to know what happened…

So why? Why is HB 23 being put on ice as my compatriot Kilroy is found of saying. Who is soooooo scared someone will find out what is really going on in school board meetings? Is it Charlie Copeland? Is it Mark Murphy? Is it… Darryl Scott? Is it Pete Schwartzkoph?

Hmmm. I wonder if it has any sponsors in the General Assembly right now?

Hmmmmmm… What do those all have in common…… 🙂 Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…. Do they all drink their coconut milk imbibed with lime? …. No….. Do they all call each other up and wear the same color of underwear each daily session?…… No…… Ummm. Do they all have the same Delaware extension tatoo’d to their buttocks?….. Ummmm…..M a y… b e…….

It is someone with a lot to hide; that is for sure… And it is nobody from here:

Red Clay, Christina, Capital, Delmar, Brandywine and Colonial currently already voluntarily record their board meetings! As well as the Delaware State Board of Education records their meetings!

So why is this something that has to be kept secret, and never brought to pass?….. Because we are not talking about individuals VOTING on a bill…They could vote YEA or NEA and it wouldn’t matter! What concerns us and you, is the pure morality of KEEPING A BILL FROM BEING VOTED FOR YOU BECAUSE IT WILL PASS….

So according to its sponsor, Deborah Hudson, Matt Denn is sitting on this bill…. He is doing it to protect someone else, to whom perhaps he is loyal…. How seriously then, were a procedural crime to be committed requiring a judicial investigation, can he be trusted to dig and search for the truth instead of whitewashing the whole affair to protect this same someone, when he can’t even be trusted to get a vote for heaven’s sakes….on a voice recording of school board meetings, out on to the floor for a vote? Let that sink in for a second…. Really?

Put all else aside….. Really?

IS that really the kind of attorney general we want after Beau Biden…. a crony?

Really? He’s going to throw his whole career away …. on that?

Really? Why would he do that? But it is definite a campaign issue, like blocking the GW bridge, one that resonates and will stick, because EVERY parent has a child in school….Whether they would ever listen themselves or not, this concerns them now… They too will question: why is Matt Denn, who is running for Attorney General, trying so hard to keep information regarding my kid and his friends, from ever being made public??? Hmmmmm….

Seriously, this blemishes his entire pro-family image he developed while serving as our insurance commissioner. This makes him one of the snakes….. with those evil eyes…..

What happens to elected officials when turned out of office? They become lobbyists. Prostitutes for hire. The higher bidder, the better. With so much money currently floating among the top 1%, there is currently a very high demand for those former elected officials, who can ply their skills, prestige, and contacts, into pushing “special” legislation down the corridors of change……

Based on his actions back in his twenties, I was expecting more out of the former Mayor Baker. But I guess, everyone has got to eat… And if you are staving badly enough, there is nothing to which you won’t stoop, to get a free meal…..

The check is in the mail, Mr. Baker… Obviously in your new position, facts don’t play a role. Though those were important in your old job, they are the opposite of what your new one entails… We understand that… You are forgiven….

The one factor you forgot to mention; is poverty. Poverty determines proficiency levels; not skin color… and brains do come out of the womb pretty much all the same.

The second factor you forgot to mention, is charter schools under-perform public schools. Of course one can compare a top white basketball player to a poor black one, and say… “see we need more whites on the basketball court”… But there is something missing in your argument. That is all the white basketball players who shoot under 20% under the basket. You failed to mention the proficiency rates of every other charter in the state. And cherry picked only the best two. and cherry picked the worst two public schools….

We understand your concern for black males. Your cause is noble. However there are white males out there who are poor too and they have similar scores. Maine and Delaware both test almost all their students on the SAT… Whereas Delaware is mixed with a high urban percentage, Maine is all white and rural. Delaware scores are higher than Maine’s Both states are poor, with Maine being poorer than Delaware. So you see, it is poverty that is the problem, not the melanin in one’s skin…. It is extremely hard to educate a child who leaves school, doesn’t eat, has no electricity, and has to be wary of being attacked 24/7. To them, classroom is a vacation, and anything said there, is irrelevant to the jungle which is his/her real world. …..

All you did in this piece was the equivalent of taking the Philly76’rs that are highly selective, and compare it to the pick-up teams on the worn down courts in East Side, who have to take whoever comes on in their pickup games… You further failed to mention the equivalent of the 76r’s track record this year, or that the pickup team elevated itself into a championship round on the intramural courts…. So which team’s structure is better? Tthe team that improves over its tenure? Or the team that falls apart?

It doesn’t take a basketball coach to see that all those smart children in Kuumba, would do much, much better if they had the quality teachers of Warner, instead of being pulled out of class to dance in the streets every time a state official comes by to give their headmaster a plaque….

If the failure rate of Kuumba was applied across all of Wilmington’s children, the negativity would be catastrophic. Which is why, all our smart legislators are saying we need full control over charters…. And mind you, I did this presentation with the very best charter, Kuumba. I could have used Pencader, REACH, or Moyer, (but the performance of those charters would embarrass you too much…). Can you imagine if every black child was placed in a Pencader?

Now you asked, why would anyone want to limit charter and impede growth?

Charters take money away from public schools. If a school like Warner which is forced to take in the lowest of the low, allows a charter to skim off all it’s top students, it loses $3700 for each of those students, and depresses its proficiency level… Which means it has to make do on 85% of what it did prior to the influx of charter, and do so with a higher percentage of its students in special ed and high risk…. Across this state there are 92% of Delaware’s children in Public schools…Only 8% are in charters… Next year it has been approved to jump by 2300 more students with four new charters opening or an 22% jump in the number of Charter students…. That means that even if those charters are performing as well as the current public schools do now, (which they won’t; look at Kuumba above), 90% of the rest of Delaware’s students will have their schools underfunded.….. Now if you are having trouble paying your bills now, how are you going to do it on 15% less? Huh?

You can’t, so you cut back essential goods and services… And those 93.5% of Warner’s children listed as low income, are now given even less of an opportunity to succeed in a world that is so inordinately stacked against them….

What is sad, Mr. Baker, is that you know better. As a young man you stood on the courthouse steps and wagged your finger and demanded equal opportunity for the black folk, (I think that is the nice term we all called them back then… )

So why are you selling them out now, for a paycheck? Of all things?

Instead, what you should be saying is that we need more funding in public schools, that we need higher taxes on our top one percenters to pay for it, that we need charter schools funded as are vocational schools by a line item in the state budget as a luxury, and not a necessity stealing funds away from public schools that currently show more growth than Kuumba… You should be crusadeing for an 11:1 student teacher ration, in every k-5 school with over 50% levels of low income students!

You should be demanding that no charters open and take public money, until ALL the problems are first fixed in the public schools. Because public schools perform better than charters…. when you look at the growth in each child…

If we had your way, we would mediocritize all the best potential the African American community has to offer, and then completely destroy the other 90% of all the rest…Your plan will make us into a Chester, Camden, or Philadelphia. We are better than that.

You are selling the black man out. With your amazing history, that is heartbreakingly sad… sort of like Brutus who fought along Caesar all those years, turning and stabbing Caesar in the back…….

There is no other way to put it: “Come into my house and I’ll give you candy..”

In this case the candy is something called ” innovation” As would any pedophile (no implication being made to Russo here) in making HIS argument, Ron Russo only mentions one side. He does not talk about the …”other”… Which we know is the rape of the public school system that allowing charters will provoke.

How do we know this?

Philadelphia.

Milwaukee.

Chicago.

Cleveland,

Washington DC.

It’s been done… It’s always failed.

Those places went into the Charter House for innovation…. They came out broken and raped…. Sorry, there is just no other way to describe what really happens when you allow Charters to siphon resources away from the public school system…

Imagine if you had riots in Wilmington… And you pulled resources… “All right, all national guard, all policemen, all fireman, all public employed are commanded by the mayor to leave the city… Let them innovate themselves out fo their predicament”…. Would that work?

That is exactly what you do to public schools when you have charters… You take resources direly needed to hold their own against a plethora of problems, and you take them away and give to someone else… someone who really doesn’t need them…

Why does Russo not mention this ugly part of charters? Most likely because he has lived a lily white existence. As head of St. Marks, where one picks and chooses ones students… As head of Wilmington Charter… where one picks and choses ones students…. A charter school, where less than 5.7% are considered low income…. Yet they steal resources away from low income schools that desperately need more money, not less, but get less because of people like Russo who think innovation is good…

However, I must thank Russo for one thing… For bringing to the forefront the mission statement that was hailed to bring charter schools into the mix in the first place….

The purpose of Delaware’s charter schools, as stated in the “Charter School Law of 1995,” is to “… improve public education overall …”

Research in Philadelphia has proven that since Charters were allowed into Philadelphia… the average score of the entire district, including both charters and public schools, as fallen considerably…. That means we were sending kids through the Philadelphia school system with a better shot at a good future before 2004 before charters were allowed, than we currently do today….

That is in direct opposite to Delaware desire….”to improve public education overall…..”

Seriously, if you help 20% and hurt 80%…. how does the entire state perform better when for every 2 going forward, you have 8 going back?

Why does Russo not address this? Because it completely destroys his argument. That is why.

There is one way to do both… And that is to cut the financial cord between charters and their districts… If you want the luxury of allowing charters to flourish, and try new things,… you need to put them as a line item in the state budget and tax the 1% who will have access to these charters sufficiently, to pay for them…

Charter Schools want to come into Wilmington… Delaware Charter Schools Network Executive Director Kendall Massett explains it this way: “When you have an open field, you build a road into it, that is just what you do; when you have a shore line, you haul dump trucks of sand to the ocean’s edge and dump sand it it…Therefore even though we don’t really need one more Charter School, we desperately need 5, simply “… because it makes me look good if I can get them to all go in…. “”

State legislators disagree… In a letter to Mark Murphy, 20 state legislators (one third) expressed their concerns… Their main concern was that new Charters would deplete financial resources from public schools, particularly Red Clay, costing it $2.6 million…

According to state records, Philadelphia’s School District paid $240 million to charter schools per year….. These costs had to be met in other ways.

Kendall Massett says parents should have the right to choose a school for their child…. She brought up the beach sand analogy to prove its point… “Every year we truck sand in from the Pacific ocean across the nation at very great expense, to give beach goers an option to stand on either Atlantic or Pacific sand if they choose. Without the great cost and expense, they would only have the sand of one geographical location, and their lives would be severely limited.” The legislators pulled out a microscope and then challenged Kendall Massett to prove which grains were from the Pacific and which were locally beached. Kendall Massett was unable to distinguish any difference between the two.

So despite great expense in carting the sand from one side of the country to the other, and despite great expense in getting charters off the ground, as well as in running a public school system on $240 million less, Kendall Massett insists we continue forward with Charters for the most serious of reasons: “… because it makes me look good if I can get them to all go in…. ”

To this Kendall Massett replied that unless you go forward and put Pacific sand on the beach, many beach goers will never get the opportunity again, to stand on Pacific grains of sand… ” “We believe these schools will add unique value to Delaware because of their innovative methodology”..

When questioned by legislators what unique methodology Charter Schools could provide… Kendall Massett responded: “Duh, I said they’re from a different place… So, that means they are different…In the case of two of them, a strong track record of success for kids.” meaning of course that three of the five have no record of success at all. but she insists, we should approve them all, because?

“… because it makes me look good if I can get them to all go in…. ”

Recently, when it was announced that Freire Charter’s application was in jeopardy, 41 parents of students in Freire in Philly, all wrote letters extolling the virtues of Freire, once it was clearly told them that their child would fail the entire year, if glowing letters of recommendation were not forthcoming immediately…

Waxing eloquently, Massett wrote a letter in large hand printed script to her gym teaching mentor stating, that “It is perplexing that, in a city plagued by violence, charter opponents have criticized Freire’s nonviolence policy, which creates a safe haven in which students can learn and thrive.”

The legislators responded that Massett must have been smoking crack while they were talking. No one said anything like that at all, they insisted. If anything their opposition was not against Freire per se, but was instead directed against the loss of money that it would steal from the good existing schools already in place in the four districts surrounding Wilmington….

After the meeting, many legislators expressed amazement at Kendall Massett’s assertions…. Rep, Kim Williams, “the way she was acting, I almost pulled a chunk of green kryptonite I carry in my purse, just to see if she’d wither and collapse in a corner somewhere” she seriously pondered….

Said Charles Potter: If Kendall Massett wanted to fill her pickup with sand and haul it across country at her own expense, we’d have no problem with that. But to make everyone pay an extraordinary price for sand that is identical to what we already have, is not the best use of taxpayers money at this time….

After all, the only reason Kendall Massett is so rabidly insistent is because?

Christina District currently sends out $3701 per every child it sends to charters. That amount varies depending on district, but just to get an idea, let us use that figure.

The new school will take 2800 students…. Therefore 2800 students times that dollar amount equals $10,362,800… This amount to paraphrase Ross Perot in the 1992 campaign, will act as a giant sucking sound siphoning off of all 4 districts created out of the desegregation debacle. Christina, Red Clay, Colonial, and Brandywine….

Systemwide those 4 districts currently have 55,794 students…. Subtract the 2800 out of them, and systemwide there are now 55,294 students left…

The loss of $10,362,800 across those 4 districts of 55,294 boils down to an average loss of $196 per student.

Go to the state’s website, click on your district, click on your school… Your student population should appear on a graph. Hover on the top of the last dot on the graph, (that would be 2014) and the student population appears in a little white box. Take that number and times it by $196 to get the shocking revelation of what this Charter costs your school….

This represents the drain of resources this giant charter will cost this area… $196 per child… The reality is that in some districts it will be much worse. If by some slim chance all of the students came out of Red Clay for example, the real cost of this charter would be $566 per student and none of the other districts would be affected…. But in reality most likely it will be split, though not equally. Best guess is Christina and Red Clay each pick up a third of the loss, Brandywine and Colonial split the remaining third as sharing two pieces of 1/6th…… If so, the losses to each district would run thusly:

Christina 933 students lost $3,453,033 total students in district (16721) adjusted district total (15,788) loses $218 per student across entire district

Red Clay 934 students lost $3,456,734 total students in district (18295) adjusted district total (17,361) loses $196 per student across entire district

Brandywine 467 students lost $1,728,367 total students in district (10802) adjusted district total (10335) loses $167 per student across entire district

Colonial 466 students lost $1,724,666 total students in district (9976) adjusted district total (9510) loses $181 per student across entire district

Just a guess… So now, go to your school and figure out its total loss per school, per grade, and per class….

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Your child is losing this part of your tax dollars so those owning the new school get rich. There is really no other honest explanation.. They can’t teach better. They can’t discipline better. In fact, if one takes the charter schools across the state, and isolates them by income, they all under-perform the public schools on the same economic level…. A public school with only 8% low income, does better than any charter school with 8% low income. Likewise a public school with 95% low income, does better than a charter with 95% low income…

What this school does is pull out students from your schools to give them an inferior education, just so those owning the charter school make a profit (rent money) off of your property tax dollars… Property tax dollars that should be going to new and improved services in your districts schools…

And this in that process, cuts down on the investment of your child… If your child goes to Brandywine in 2015, he will have $167 less spent on him than he will in 2014. If your child goes to Red Clay, he will have $196 less spent on him in 2015, than he will have in 2014. If your child goes to Colonial, he will have $181 less in 2015 than in 2014. If he goes to Christina, he will have less $218 less spent in 2015, than in 2014….

Most likely a referendum will go out asking you to pay more … to cover that difference… And …That is a huge difference.. Figure a class of 23 kids? $5014 less per classroom!… That money will need to come from somewhere or class room performance will have no other choice but to go down…

You will ask… Why do I have to pay more? The answer will be: honestly? … so those owning the Bank of America Building off Rodney Square in Wilmington, get paid….

That is the only reason and that is why you need to take action …. as soon as you finish reading this….

Do you know how to contact them by email or phone? Go to these email links for House and Senate and you will soon….

Simply express your dissatisfaction with your representative for allowing this to go forward… Right now, that should be enough… Make it explicitly clear you are against the Philadelphiazation of New Castle County’s 4 school districts… We are Delaware! We are not Chicago. We are not Milwaukee. We are not Washington DC. We are not Philadelphia. There is no reason except for the greed of a handful of well-connected men (no women), as to why we should trash our school systems as did happen in all those cities…….

Sweeney is at it again. As old age creeps up on him as with everyone else, his edge has dulled. In this case it is not his intellect, but his wisdom which fades. Instead of thinking for himself, he is led by the nose with a thread, sewed through his septum, then tied in a knot, with a long string dangling out of his nostril….

“They” tried to hide the author. It is buried under ….”Our View…” But like his face in the picture often used to represent him… some things one just can’t hide…. There is a particular slant of Sweeneyism that is hard to copy. That could be described as preaching the gospel of creationism long after it has been debunked…

In his latest attempt Sweeney gets called to save the dying Charter Schools. Public opinion has turned against the administration…. Yet in Sweeney’s entire argument, there are no facts. Why should we turn to Charter Schools? The facts are that they teach worse than do public schools, they waste more tax dollars than public schools, they actually cost more dollars than public schools, and they drain resources away from public schools, Oh, and they pay their owners, superintendents, and administrators more than public schools… To the tune of $72 dollars a student more!

So why should we continue with Charter Schools? The only reason Sweeney can possibly derive… is because people want them. Well. … …. … People want heroin too…. So perhaps the perfect rebuttal to Sweeney’s argument would be to substitute the word…” Heroin”… for his words… “Charter Schools”… Trust me… It is a really fun read… It also shows the spuriousness of Sweeney’s argument… “Why should everyone suffer just to make a few people happy?” Here is Sweeney’s explanation… (Warning: don’t drink and read at the same time..).. 🙂

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“Twenty legislators have asked the state Board of Addictions to consider the possible harm five new heroin dispensaries pose to the Red Clay Consolidated School District.

The legislators are worried that too much legal heroin will drive students out of Red Clay schools. They argue this would be a detriment to the district and to those who prefer a public drug-free culture.

They have a point. Looked at from the institution’s point of view, heroin poses a threat. However, what does it look like from the point of view of the addicts who would want to send their children into heroin addiction? What do they see? What is the need addicts are trying to fill?

The heroin debate generally has ignored questions like these. Most of the arguments coming from the legislators and others, focus on the concerns of the institutions and those who run them. The viewpoint of the typical addict is missing.

Abstinence has been, is and will be the backbone of the American anti drug system, its religion, its workplace. However, for generations, people with money could sidestep any legal faults they saw in that system by sending their children money for heroin. However, since the advent of laws allowing for legal heroin, middle- and low-income parents now have had the ability to leave that dull reality as well. Most likely, these parents do not see themselves as leaving an old reality; they are just trying to get a better thrill for their children. The parents, in other words, are voting with their actions, driving into Wilmington, buying bags, and giving it to their children.

Instead of complaining, the anti drug establishment and their legislative supporters should be asking why.

People who hook new addicts study their customers. When the customers stop coming back, those business operators find out why and do something about it. They do not blame the competition, they kill them. As one businessman recently put it, Pepsi does not try to shut down Coke when the customers stop drinking Pepsi. Pepsi fights back.

Do the leaders of Red Clay or any other anti drug institution know why parents want to take their children out of abstinence? The districts cannot blame the growth of drug use on just the plight of middle-class white parents. Heroin addiction is extremely attractive to lower-income minority parents as well.

Why? What prompts them to shoot up? What attracts them to heroin? If the anti drug leaders know what the reason is, why isn’t it on the table for discussion? Suppose the problem were lack of love or curriculum. Shouldn’t that problem be the topic for discussion? Shouldn’t the legislators be trying to assist the anti drug establishment to find a solution for the heroin addiction, rather than complaining about alleged unfairness of those selling heroin to be beyond the law?

We applaud the legislators for their concern, but they would have a better argument if they could speak to the addicts’ concerns as well.

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This argument doesn’t work for heroin; it doesn’t work for Charter Schools…. The definition of freedom… at least as we (and that includes Sweeney) once learned…. “is the right to do what you want as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else”…… There are only two Charter Schools doing well…. Newark and Wilmington’s.. Between just the two of them, there are 2700 students…. Across the state there are over 133,000…. Why should every other student have to experience a decline in resources-per-child to benefit only 0.2% of the student population?

In Sweeney’s topsy turvey world, everyone of those 130,600 other students must now suffer (which even he admits to), until we find out why 0.2% of the population has an addiction to something different……